Awards announced for £1m funding to expand access to health and care data in the South West
The South West Secure Data Environment (SDE) has announced the organisations awarded funding through its £1m Data Accelerator Fund for Novel and Emerging Assets (DAFNEA). The awards will support access to unique, multimodal data for trusted researchers.
The eleven funded projects bring together health and care providers, universities and voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations from across the South West. With expert guidance and support from the South West SDE team, they will deliver the technical and governance work needed to make existing datasets ‘research ready’.
Individual awards range between £25,000 and £125,000, depending on the data complexity. The funding prioritised data assets that align with Health Data Research UK (HDR UK) strategic priorities and tackle health inequalities. A portion of the funding was ring-fenced for applications from the VCSE sector.
The successful awards were:
- Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust – Rheumatology dataset; Bath National Pain Centre Complex Pain Outcomes dataset
- University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust – Multimodal stroke and control dataset – ABSTRACT project
- Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust – Skin lesion imaging dataset; multi modal chest imaging dataset
- First Light South West – Improving support pathways for sexual violence survivors dataset
- Centre for Sustainable Energy – Energy and property related poverty data assets
- University of Exeter (data controller: Royal Devon University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust) – Diabetes genomics datasets
- University of Bristol & Bristol NHS Foundation Trust – PeMCOD – Perinatal & Maternal Care Outcomes dataset
- University of Bristol – Centre for Academic Primary Care – One in a Million: Telesafe
- Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust – AWP Eating Disorders cohort
- Caafi Health CIC – Community health dataset of Bristol’s global majority communities
- BrisDoc Healthcare Services – Urgent care multimodal datasets including NHS 111 and GP Out of Hours services
Their projects will cover a wide range of health and social care contexts, including acute services, mental health, primary care, community services, genomics, medical imaging and the wider social determinants of health.
Data made available through the SDE is de-identified. This means any personally identifiable information is removed or replaced before the researcher accesses it. The exception is where patients have given explicit permission for a particular type of personal data to be used in research. In these cases, researchers only have access to the minimum amount of personal data needed to answer their research question. There is more information here about how data is used.
GP Dr Charlie Kenward leads the South West SDE in his role as Research Clinical Lead at Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board (BNSSG ICB). He said:
‘This investment will accelerate high-quality research and innovation to improve patient outcomes. It is a core part of NHS England’s national strategy to enable secure and responsible access to health and social care data for research purposes, and we are delighted to be working with a great range of data partners.’
The fund is coordinated by the South West SDE research hubs at the University of Bristol and the University of Exeter, with support from the NIHR Bristol and Exeter Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs).